Bay of Secrets (31 page)

What should she do? She could refuse to go. But if she went … Something told her that if she went she might find out something more, something that she needed to know.

*

She met the man and the woman under the arches by Calle Fernando. Who knew what kind of dubious transactions took place there? The area was full of shadows; of beggars and thieves.

The man seemed surprised to see her. ‘Where is the priest?’ he asked.

The priest? He was usually met by a priest? Sister Julia did not know how to answer this and so she was silent.

The man laughed, but without humour. He handed her an envelope. ‘Count it,’ he said. ‘I do not want to be accused of short-changing anyone.’

Sister Julia counted ten thousand pesetas. She had never seen so much money in her life. Whatever was the money for? Was the clinic to be refurbished, perhaps? Would Dr Lopez be taking on more staff? It must take a certain amount of money to run a clinic like the doctor’s but she had assumed that it existed on its charitable donations; she knew for a fact that it was assisted by the Church, the reverend mother had told her so.

‘I’ll be back in six months,’ the man said. ‘With the next instalment.’

The next instalment? Sister Julia’s blood ran cold. ‘How many in all?’ she was bold enough to ask.

‘This is the seventh of ten, Sister,’ he said. He bowed his head.

A hundred thousand pesetas then.

Perhaps Sister Julia would not have known for sure what the payment was for if she had not recognised the woman half hiding in the shadows of the arches, her scarf drawn around her face as she stepped forwards to leave.

Sister Julia had seen her at the clinic. She had come there not to give birth, however; she had come there to adopt a child.

So. This man and this woman were adoptive parents. If she tried, she might even be able to remember the name. They were all – were they not? – written down.

A hundred thousand pesetas. So that was how it was. Dear God in heaven. It came to Sister Julia gradually what she had been a part of for so long; what she was a part of still. She had been right to question whether it was simply a matter of helping vulnerable members of society, of giving children more opportunities in life. Of course it was not. How could she have been so blind? So naive? So gullible? It was also a question of money. And the money came from the right sort of families. Right, Sister Julia thought, in more than one sense of that word. This was a corruption that had been going on in front of her eyes for almost three decades.

As she hurried back to the Canales Clinic, the money in her pocket felt as if it was burning through to Sister Julia’s very skin. She couldn’t wait to be rid of it. Blood money, she thought. Money paid for human life.

The doctor was waiting for her.

She pulled the envelope from her pocket and held it out to him. Took a deep breath. Courage, she thought. ‘Will you tell me, doctor,’ she said, ‘what this money is in payment for?’

‘Ah, Sister.’ He flicked the envelope from her grasp. ‘Perhaps it is best that you do not know.’

Sister Julia met his piercing gaze. She remembered that first day she had been introduced to him in the hospital and how he had intimidated her. She remembered all the questions that she had wanted to ask over the years – and indeed, all the questions that she had asked. ‘Perhaps,’ she said quietly, ‘I already do know.’

He frowned. Scrutinised her up and down in a way he had not done since that first day. ‘God moves in mysterious ways, Sister,’ he said. ‘And ours is not to reason why.’ And he took a step closer towards her.

He was so close now that she could feel his breath on her face, smell the scent of him – of surgical spirit and the hint of stale alcohol. He gripped her wrist and in that second she was so scared that she almost stopped breathing. But she did not back down. She would not back down. She stared right back at him. She knew now exactly what he was.

‘Perhaps you will not always be able to hide behind God, doctor,’ she said, forcing her voice not to shake.

His grip tightened. ‘And perhaps you, Sister Julia,’ he said, ‘should take care.’

She stood her ground and after a moment he seemed to come to his senses. He loosened his hold on her and she pulled her hand away.

He took some money out of the envelope. ‘I wish to pay you for the task you have undertaken today, Sister.’ His voice now was businesslike and calm.

She stared at him in disbelief. Did he really think that everyone could be bought so easily? Was that what his world was like? ‘I want no money,’ she said, her voice low. ‘I want nothing. And I want no part of it ever again.’

‘Very well, Sister.’ He opened the door for her to leave. And as she left, a look passed between them. A look so complete in understanding that she felt weak, as if her legs might collapse from under her. But she held her head high and she returned to Santa Ana.

*

At the convent, Sister Julia hurried to the chapel to pray. And she asked for God’s forgiveness – because these things had been done in His name. Names … She went to her room, she looked in her book of names and she sighed. There were so many of them. She had done what she could. But now she could do no more. Was she still a person in her own right, as well as a sister at the Convent Santa Ana? Could she make her own decisions? Did she still have a voice?

She went to see the reverend mother and told her she was unable to work at the clinic with Dr Lopez any longer.

‘Why is that?’ the mother superior asked sharply.

‘I cannot,’ Sister Julia said. ‘I will not.’ Her face was wet with tears. But who was she crying for? Was it for the mothers who had lost their babies? The children who would never know who they truly were? Or was she crying for herself and what she had lost?

‘But for what reason, my child?’ The reverend mother seemed to soften slightly in the face of her passion.

Sister Julia swallowed hard. Should she tell her about the money? What she now knew – for sure – about Dr Lopez and the clinic? Should she tell her of all the things that had been done in God’s name? She longed to. It would be such a relief to tell someone, to unburden after all these years. And yet … She had tried to tell her before. And each time had been fobbed off with the same story. The reverend mother had always defended him. Why should anything be different now? The truth was that Sister Julia did not know if she could trust her.

‘I cannot say.’ She bowed her head. ‘But it has become impossible for me to continue my work there. I need to take some time for prayer. I need to find again my God.’

The reverend mother regarded her sadly for several moments without saying a word. ‘I will speak to the doctor,’ she said at last.

Sister Julia could not bear it. If she ever had to return there … She straightened her shoulders. ‘Reverend Mother, I will not go back,’ she repeated.

The mother superior regarded her again and then at last
she reached out her hand and placed it on Sister Julia’s head. ‘You will not have to, my child,’ she said. ‘Do not fear.’

‘Thank you, Reverend Mother.’ And Sister Julia felt the burden ease.

‘But you cannot stay here,’ she added.

Sister Julia was not surprised. But where could she go? This was the only home she had known for so many years.

The reverend mother seemed deep in thought. ‘We will send you to our Canary Island of Fuerteventura,’ she said at last. ‘To a small convent there which is just starting out. It is quiet. You will be safe. You will have the opportunity to reflect and to pray just as you wish.’

‘Very well, Reverend Mother.’ It was an appealing thought. To be quiet. To be safe. To have the opportunity to reflect on everything that had happened. Though she knew that if she was safe, then Dr Lopez would be safe as well.

*

There was one thing that Sister Julia had to do before she left – she must find her sister Paloma and she must say goodbye.

One day in early March, when the breeze was mild and it seemed that winter might be creeping away at last, Sister Julia made her way to the street where her family had lived, and where Mario Vamos too had resided next door. It was not the first time she had been back and yet she stood for several minutes gazing at the house, remembering those family times – some cheerful but many fraught with poverty and hardship. She looked up at the window of the room she had shared with her sisters, and she seemed to hear it once again catching
in the wind that funnelled down the narrow street – Paloma’s chatter, Paloma’s girlish laughter.

Her family no longer owned the house and so Sister Julia knocked on the door of the house next door – the Vamos’s. Perhaps even Paloma …

But the door was opened by an old woman – Mario’s aged aunt, she suspected, whom she remembered from those long-ago childhood days.

‘Yes, Sister? Can I help you?’ the woman enquired politely, not quite hiding her surprise at seeing a nun on her doorstep.

Sister Julia did not prevaricate. ‘Señora, I am looking for Señora Paloma Vamos,’ she said. ‘It is a matter of some urgency.’

The old woman’s expression altered to one of distaste. ‘I know her,’ she said.

‘Then please give me her address.’ Sister Julia smiled slightly to soften her words.

‘Of course.’ She disappeared inside and returned with a piece of paper which she passed to Sister Julia. ‘Here.’

‘Thank you.’

Sister Julia made her way through the maze of the Raval quarter to the street whose name was written in a spidery scrawl on the paper. Number fifteen. When she arrived there, it was drab and uncared-for. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

It was opened by a man of about her own age. She recognised him immediately. But the boyish good looks had
slipped from his face – replaced by a hardness that surprised her. He was wearing a cap at a jaunty angle and there was still a certain humour in those eyes. But his mouth was downturned into a cruel line and his expression was not kind. ‘Señor Vamos?’ Sister Julia enquired.

‘
Si
.’ He didn’t flinch as he looked at her. ‘What can I do for you, Sister?’

Sister Julia held herself erect. Of course he would not recognise her. Why should he after all these years? ‘I am come to see my sister Paloma,’ she said.

‘Oh?’

But behind him she saw Paloma herself materialise from a front room. ‘Julia?’ She edged past her husband and held out a hand. ‘Julia?’

Ignoring Mario Vamos’s curious gaze, Sister Julia allowed her hand to be taken as he shrugged and stepped away from the door and Paloma pulled her inside. She smelt the sweet scent of tobacco clinging to his clothes and skin as she moved past him, mingling with the smell of alcohol and sweat. And she noted the way they responded to one another; Mario’s curt tone of dismissal as he spoke to his wife.

She and her sister sat facing one another in a small and shabby room at the front of the house. Paloma brought coffee and left it on a side table. ‘Julia,’ she said again. ‘It is good to see you.’

‘And you too, Paloma.’ Sister Julia bowed her head. But in truth, it was a shock. Her sister had changed so much. Her hair was greying and unkempt, her eyes were dull where they
had always shone like dark diamonds and the generous curve of her mouth was now tinged with bitterness. ‘How are you?’ she asked.

As if in reply the front door slammed and Sister Julia saw Mario saunter off down the street, hands in pockets, whistling.

Paloma closed her eyes. ‘He will not return tonight,’ she said.

Sister Julia did not know what to say. ‘You are not happy?’ she ventured at last. She remembered what Paloma and their mother had said the last time they visited. ‘You and Mario still have no children?’

Paloma shook her head. ‘We have no children,’ she said. ‘And we will not.’

And Sister Julia could see how it was. How Paloma had become bitter and plain as she watched her husband flirt with younger women of the neighbourhood, as they fought a battle which Paloma could never hope to win, as she failed to give him children and lost her husband time after time, more wholly with each year that passed – until he no longer wanted her at all.

‘I am leaving our city,’ Sister Julia told her as she got up to go. ‘I am to live in a convent in Fuerteventura.’

Paloma nodded, seeming unsurprised. ‘I wish you luck, Julia,’ she said. ‘I wish you love.’ She smiled. And just for a second she seemed like the old Paloma, the careless, laughing girl.

‘And I you, my sister.’ They embraced. ‘And I you.’

*

Sister Julia left Barcelona in the middle of the Easter festival. The streets were full of people watching the processions and the floats. Peanuts, chocolate and caramelised almonds were being thrown to the children standing by the roadside. By the church, a priest stood holding a missal and a rosary, blessing people as they passed by. There were women wearing mantillas, those delicate traceries of lace, black high heels and black dresses, and men in black suits with slicked back hair. There were upturned faces, people crossing themselves as they murmured a silent prayer. The scents of celebration were in the air for Holy Week – wax, incense, garlic, tobacco smoke … And orange blossom, for the blooms were now cloaking the trees in the city. It was a heady cocktail, and one which reminded Sister Julia of how the city had once been when she was a girl. At last Spain’s fortunes had changed.

And Sister Julia was to retreat from her world at last.

‘Shall we?’ Andrés was holding out his hand. Sure and safe.

‘Are you joking?’ Ruby looked towards the stage. The band – a new band – was playing swing and people had started to dance.

‘I never joke about serious things,’ he said, ‘like dancing.’

‘Fair enough.’ Ruby slid off the stool. As always when she’d been playing, she felt emotionally drained, a bit of a wasteland. That was OK – she always put a lot in because she wanted to, it was the only way of getting a lot out. But afterwards, she needed to wind down – a few beers or a large glass of red, some food, an easy conversation.

Not dancing.

On the dance floor, the beat picked up. Andrés strode forwards, still holding her hand and looking purposeful. He was wearing faded black jeans, a linen shirt the colour of a pale mushroom and a slightly crumpled linen jacket. His thick dark hair curled against the collar. He had a furrow of concentration on his brow as he found a space on the floor (this was worrying; was he expecting her to move around that much?). He took her in a kind of ballroom hold. She quite liked the proximity of that. So far, so OK.